Just who is Australia's newly appointed Ambassador to the USA?

 Just who is Australia's newly appointed Ambassador to the USA?

Australia's Peoples Liberation Army ENDORSED Labor GreenLOON "Independent" TEAL Co Party CABAL PM Comrade Anthony Albanese said this about his friend Lu Kewen, Kevin 07 Kevin Rud when defending him from journalists' questions following the announcement of his appointment.

Journailsts: “Your colleagues have invariably described Kevin Rudd as a psychopath, a micromanager, a control freak. Is this the person who your government needs to have in Washington?” a journalist questioned.

He also asked Mr Albanese if he was concerned the former Labor leader would essentially become a “second foreign minister” in the United States.

Albanese: “He brings a great deal of credit to Australia by agreeing to take up this position as a former prime minister, as a former foreign minister, as someone who's been head of the Asia Society, and as someone who has links with the global community,” Mr Albanese said in Canberra on Tuesday.

“Based in Washington, DC, will be a major asset in working to assist the Foreign Minister, as other ambassadors do in their job.”

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/prime-minister-anthony-albanese-clashes-with-reporters-over-kevin-rudds-appointment-as-us-ambassador-after-character-attacks-by-former-colleagues/news-story/b0479317f4b6a405341f53f540a13e95

Andrew Bolt

Three strikes for Kevin747

Andrew Bolt Herald Sun

October 29, 2008 12:00am

KEVIN Rudd blabs. Kevin Rudd betrays. What's more, Kevin Rudd appears to make things up.

And on Saturday our Prime Minister managed to commit all three fouls at once against US President George W. Bush.

Trying to sell himself as a statesman, he blabbed to The Australian all the details of a private talk he'd had with the President of our most important ally.

Not only that, he betrayed Bush by retelling their conversation in ways to make the President seem a donkey, and Rudd the genius who trained him to behave. And Bush has noticed.

Still not satisfied, Rudd then apparently made things up - to take public credit for a decision Bush had already made.

I can't recall a greater breach of confidence, a more studied insult to an ally or a more craven attempt at big-noting from an Australian Prime Minister.

Is there a single foreign leader who can now be confident Australia's Prime Minister won't blab about their private talks and betray them, too?

Last Saturday The Australian ran an extraordinary story that was fed to them by Rudd or a close aide clearly acting with his approval. (Either that, or Rudd's staff are dangerously beyond his control, trading his secrets without his knowledge - something I doubt a single journalist or politician in Canberra would believe.)

Here are the key details from that article:

Kevin Rudd was entertaining guests in the loungeroom at Kirribilli House in Sydney when an aide told him George W. Bush was on the telephone.

It was 10.40pm on Friday, October 10

(Note that date, by the way. Rudd trips over it.)

What followed was an extraordinary exchange in which Rudd advised the most powerful man in the world that a plan to address the global financial crisis through the G7 group of leading industrialised nations was wrong . . .

It made no sense, he said, to take action on the crisis without engaging China. Rudd argued that the better vehicle for a co-ordinated response to calm the markets and toughen financial regulation was the broader G20 grouping (which includes China) . . .

Two weeks later, Rudd's view has prevailed . . . Perhaps more so than any of his predecessors, Rudd is bringing a new understanding to world politics . . .

(Good heavens. Did Rudd write that bit of halo-polishing himself? Or was that just reporter Matthew Franklin's way of saying "thank you"?)

Rudd was then stunned to hear Bush say: "What's the G20?" . . .

He told Bush he had heard through back channels that the Chinese believed the economic collapse underscored the inherent failures of capitalism and the benefits of a planned economy.

Rudd's view on China was probably better informed than he let on to the US President. Just four days earlier, the fluent Mandarin speaker had discussed the global turmoil on the telephone with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao . . .

Sources said Bush spent the first third of the conversation attempting to keep Rudd at bay . . . But over time, Rudd appeared to convince Bush he had a reasonable point.

"He was like a bull terrier," said one source. "He was polite but firm. He was not deferential at all. I could not have imagined John Howard talking to Bush like that."

And right there is the reason Rudd - or his agent - blabbed. To make Rudd seem a player. A tough guy. The man who forced Bush to invite the G20, including Australia and China, into talks about the financial crisis.

What a genius.

Oops. I shouldn't overlook this line, added to distance Rudd from the leak:

Rudd, who refused to comment on his dealings with Bush for the preparation of this article . . .

Yeah, right. Must have been Bush, then, who quietly rang the reporter in Australia to explain in such detail what a goose he'd been.

But let's now check this story that Rudd - or his agent - sold The Australian so successfully. You'll find that it's made up not just of braggadocio, but big dollops of fantasy.

Most obviously, of course, Rudd or his agent passed on to a friendly journalist details of his private conversation with a world leader - or two, actually, because he also let slip what China's Premier told him. He prides himself very much on those calls, you see.

Surely Rudd's arrogance has now overtaken all judgment on this point alone. Which leader will now dare be frank with an Australian Prime Minister so indiscreet?

Note also that Rudd did all this simply to mock Bush and praise himself as a world statesman, just at a time when The Australian was starting to ask a couple of tough questions.

As in: how did Rudd's attempt to stop a run on the banks lead to a run on other financial institutions instead?

As in: why is he about to fly off yet again to solve the financial problems of the rest of the world, when he can't even fix the one he caused back here?

Note further that Rudd in this leak sniggeringly tells a local journalist what he kept secret from the President of the US - that the "back channels" he relied on for his Chinese gossip was actually China's Premier.

All this is extraordinary enough - and another insight in how much Rudd, who exudes arrogance, actually craves status. (Has this chronic name-dropper mentioned lately how often he rings Britain's Prime Minister? American leaders? Cate Blanchett?)

It also reminds us of his tale-telling from the Beijing Olympics's opening ceremony, when he excitedly told journalists he'd seen Bush and Russian leader Vladimir Putin argue about the fighting in Georgia.

But perhaps more brazen still is Rudd's attempt in this latest retelling to belittle Bush and steal his credit.

Go back to the date of this conversation, when Rudd claims to have been "stunned" by Bush's ignorance about the G20, and had to "convince" the fool to use it.

For a start, a search of White House transcripts reveals Bush knew what the G20 was long before Rudd allegedly had to lecture him.

In June 2006, for instance, he gave a press conference in which he explained he had "problems with the G20 position" on global trade.

In July 2006, he said he'd have a "good forum" to discuss trade problems "when the members of the G20 come" to Russia.

And Bush certainly didn't need a "polite but firm" Rudd in their conversation on October 10 this year to tell him to get the G20 involved in talks on this financial crisis.

You see, Bush and his Treasury Secretary had two days earlier already agreed to do just that, and the G20 was already gathering to convene in Washington that very weekend.

As AFP reported the day before Bush called Rudd: "The central bank chiefs and finance ministers of 19 nations, including the United States, Europe's biggest economies, China, India and Russia, are to hold a crisis meeting in Washington on Saturday. . .

"The impromptu gathering of the-called G20 group to examine the worldwide financial turmoil was called by the Brazilian Government, which currently chairs the body . . . News of the meeting followed telephone calls between US President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earlier Wednesday."

So if Bush had already agreed to a G20 meeting on Wednesday, how does this square with Rudd's bragging account of their call on Friday - of having to spend "the first third of the conversation" like "a bull terrier", demanding Bush do what in fact he'd already done days before?

In fact, Channel 9's Laurie Oakes last night reported that White House staff deny Bush ever asked Rudd: "What's the G20?" They're on to Rudd.

So we know Rudd is indiscreet. We know he's a braggart. Now we must ask: how much does he make things up?

Join Andrew on blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt

Column - The greatest liar in the Lodge

Andrew Bolt
Daily Telegraph
Wednesday, June 02, 2010

I CAN’T recall when I first knew I could never trust Kevin Rudd to tell the truth.

Was it when he claimed he and his widowed mum were thrown out of their home by a heartless landlord?

Was it when he said he had a memory blank about his night at Scores?

Perhaps it was when he said during the ABC’s cricket coverage he remembered as a 17-year-old standing at the Gabba to watch Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson tear into the English.

He remembered the crowd chanting “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if Thommo don’t get you, then Lillee must”, but even more clearly he remembered 42-year-old Colin Cowdrey bravely walking on to the field and shaking the hand of Thomson.

But “Ashes to ashes” was never a chant, and Cowdrey didn’t play in Brisbane, joining the tour in Perth.

Maybe I’m wrong to seize on such small stuff, or mean to object that he said “sorry” to a “stolen generations” no one can find. Another lie.

But it’s clear the public is also belatedly catching on. In fact, Rudd’s credibility is now shot to pieces.

He was fatally damaged already, having falsely claimed global warming was “the great moral and economic challenge of our time”, only to drop his emissions trading scheme when it got too hard.

But last week finished him off, and even left him exposed to what in normal times is a crime in politics - misleading Parliament. Rudd was accused, credibly, by former NSW premier Morris Iemma and treasurer Michael Costa of having lied when he told Iemma before the last federal election to postpone his plans to sell the state’s electricity assets until Rudd won office, when they’d then join to “f---” the unions. After the election, Rudd welched on that deal.

But more terrible for his reputation have been the deceits to justify his effective embezzlement of $38 million of taxpayers’ money to pay for political advertising for his troubled “super profits” tax on miners.

In how many ways has Rudd again shown his word to be worthless?

He promised before the election to ban such advertising, which he called “a cancer” and gave an “absolute 100 per cent guarantee” the auditor-general would have to approve such spending.

But the auditor-general has been sacked from that job, and Rudd has dipped into your pockets for the very same kind of “cancer”.

To excuse himself, Rudd had Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig last week offer two reasons for an exemption for “extremely urgent action”. And both reasons were frauds.

First, claimed Ludwig, there was “co-ordinated misinformation about the changes (which) is currently being promulgated in paid advertising”, which means the ads by miners.

But Rudd has since been forced to admit he’d approved the cash for these ads as long ago as April 20, weeks before the mining industry ran any of its own.

Ludwig’s second excuse was even dodgier: that the ads were needed since this new tax “involves changes to the value of some capital assets, they impact on financial markets”.

Uh, oh. Ludwig had contradicted what Rudd told Parliament the day before, when he denied his tax plan had hurt the markets: “Share prices around the world have fallen because of the crisis in Greece.”

Costa now asks: “Is the Prime Minister believable? Is he credible? ... This bloke has lost the public.”

He lost me long ago. Now I cannot think of a bigger liar to hold his high office.